(CNSNews.com) – Thirty-year-old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who told a House Steering and Policy Committee hearing convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last month that contraception can cost a student $3,000 during law school, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that she did not know that the Target store 3 miles from the Georgetown Law campus sells a month's supply of birth control pills for just $9.

Target advertises the $9-per-month birth control pills on its website, and CNSNews.com confirmed and reconfirmed that the $9 pills were in fact available at the Target near Georgetown Law.

Is there any guy out there that doesn't throw up in his mouth a little when looking at her? Does she go to a feminist hairstylist that specializes in unattractive looks?

"Just as President Barack Obama has intensified his anti-K Street rhetoric with the November elections in view, several of his administration’s senior aides have decamped for jobs along the influence corridor.

And many more are eyeing such a career move, sources say, despite Obama’s effort to curb the revolving door between government and advocacy."

"Just as President Barack Obama has intensified his anti-K Street rhetoric with the November elections in view, several of his administration’s senior aides have decamped for jobs along the influence corridor."

Yes, like a former Speaker of the House taking millions from Freddie Mac. If we capable of giving a resounding NO to the requests of the advocacy groups, it wouldn't matter who they hired.

My own stone age view of equal protection under that law is that whether you are Solyndra, Chrysler, Tiger Stadium or Goldman Sachs, you get the same treatment under the law as everyone else. Imagine that.

Another law is not the answer. Just ask Gingrich. He wasn't a lobbyist, he was a historian.

The public employee unions and other liberals are confident that Wisconsin voters will turn out Governor Scott Walker in a recall election later this year, but not so fast. That may turn out to be as wrong as some of their other predictions as Badger State taxpayers start to see tangible benefits from Mr. Walker's reforms—such as the first decline in statewide property taxes in a dozen years.

On Monday Mr. Walker's office released new data that show the property tax bill for the median home fell by 0.4% in 2011, as reported by Wisconsin's municipalities. Property taxes, which are the state's largest revenue source and mainly fund K-12 schools, have risen every year since 1998—by 43% overall. The state budget office estimates that the typical homeowner's bill would be some $700 higher without Mr. Walker's collective-bargaining overhaul and budget cuts....The real gains will grow as local school districts continue repairing and rationalizing their budgets using the tools Mr. Walker gave them. Those include the ability to renegotiate perk-filled teacher contracts and requiring government workers to contribute more than 0% to their pensions. A year ago amid their sit-ins and other protests, the unions said such policies would lead to the decline and fall of civilization, but the only things that are falling are tax collections.

The political lesson is that attempts to modernize government are always controversial, but support usually builds over time as the public comes to appreciate the benefits of structural change that tames the drivers of a status quo that includes ever-higher spending and taxes. The Wisconsin recall donnybrook in June will test whether voters value their own bottom lines more than the political power of unions.

Karl Rove was writing about Romney's upcoming decision with the ususal advice, but this part is historically notable:

"This was brought home to me in 2000, when then-Gov. George W. Bush was strongly leaning toward picking Dick Cheney as his VP. He knew I was opposed and invited me to make the case against his idea. I came to our meeting armed with eight political objections. Mr. Bush heard me out but with a twist: I explained my objections with Mr. Cheney sitting, mute and expressionless, next to the governor.

The next day, Mr. Bush called to say I was right. There would be real political problems if he chose Mr. Cheney. So solve them."

Inclusiveness for a political party is to include people who mostly share your principles and values. The former Gov has it backwards. Republicans and conservatives generously included him as electable in the 'big tent' theme. He got elected and he spit on them. What governing principles does Arnold Schwarzenegger share with American conservatives? He has a record now.

What a sick and perverted political joke it is to imply that anything to the right of his unprincipled, big government failure is ideological purity. His record makes the case for the empty book I call: The core, uncompromising principles of moderates.

The party included Bob Dole the tax hiker, the compassionate conservative guy who created a new entitlement while failing to reform any old ones. Republicans went along with a Ted Kennedy Education bill in a reachout, with CRAp out of fairness and with TARP in a manmade crisis. Now we picked Romney, and liberals like AS want us to turn further leftward. People like Arlen Specter made that same argument. How's he doing?

Arnold, there already is a party to our left. Join them. And tell them to turn further rightward, to be inclusive and to stop being such ideologues.

Republicans should have a trademark and take back the 'R' when people like Nixon and Schwarzenegger govern like they did.

1) Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $40,000 a plate campaign fundraising event.

2) Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when the US elected a black President, we have a black Attorney General, and about 18% of the federal workforce is black, while only 12% of the population is black.

3) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department, and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4) Only in America can we have Islamic terrorists deliberately kill innocent people in the name of Allah, and a media react by fretting that Muslims may be harmed by the backlash.

5) Only in America would we make people who want to become legal American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, while our politicians openly discuss letting anyone who snuck in illegally just become American citizens.

6) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be labeled "extremists."

7) Only in America could you be legally required to present your driver's license to buy alcohol, but not to vote.

Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gasoline went up, when the return on equity invested in a major US oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half that of a company making tennis shoes (Nike.)

9) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, yet manage to run over $1 TRILLION in debt last year by spending $7 million PER MINUTE, then complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

10) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying "their fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

Clinton is from the Democrat tribe. Gingrich is from the Republican tribe. Brock is from the radical liberal tribe. Santorum is from the strict conservative tribe.

Well,

I am not sure "tribal" is the explanation. I think it goes more to the individual peculiarities of individual human beings and that tribalism is just a means for us to get what we all seem to covet in varying degrees and in some ways.

Nor do I subscribe to the last conclusion in the last paragraph of this essay even though it includes a quote from John Stuart Mill who if I am not mistaken he had one of the highest estimated IQ's in history.

In any case:

****Evolution Explains Why Politics Is So TribalEvolution helps to explain why parties are so tribal and politics so divisive

By Michael Shermer | June 13, 2012 |

Read More » Which of these two narratives most closely matches your political perspective?

Once upon a time people lived in societies that were unequal and oppressive, where the rich got richer and the poor got exploited. Chattel slavery, child labor, economic inequality, racism, sexism and discriminations of all types abounded until the liberal tradition of fairness, justice, care and equality brought about a free and fair society. And now conservatives want to turn back the clock in the name of greed and God.

Once upon a time people lived in societies that embraced values and tradition, where people took personal responsibility, worked hard, enjoyed the fruits of their labor and through charity helped those in need. Marriage, family, faith, honor, loyalty, sanctity, and respect for authority and the rule of law brought about a free and fair society. But then liberals came along and destroyed everything in the name of “progress” and utopian social engineering.

Although we may quibble over the details, political science research shows that the great majority of people fall on a left-right spectrum with these two grand narratives as bookends. And the story we tell about ourselves reflects the ancient tradition of “once upon a time things were bad, and now they’re good thanks to our party” or “once upon a time things were good, but now they’re bad thanks to the other party.” So consistent are we in our beliefs that if you hew to the first narrative, I predict you read the New York Times, listen to progressive talk radio, watch CNN, are pro-choice and anti-gun, adhere to separation of church and state, are in favor of universal health care, and vote for measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich. If you lean toward the second narrative, I predict you read the Wall Street Journal, listen to conservative talk radio, watch Fox News, are pro-life and anti–gun control, believe America is a Christian nation that should not ban religious expressions in the public sphere, are against universal health care, and vote against measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich.

Why are we so predictable and tribal in our politics? In his remarkably enlightening book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon, 2012), University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that to both liberals and conservatives, members of the other party are not just wrong; they are righteously wrong—morally suspect and even dangerous. “Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings,” Haidt argues, “to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship. But at the same time, our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.” Thus, he shows, morality binds us together into cohesive groups but blinds us to the ideas and motives of those in other groups.

The evolutionary Rubicon that our species crossed hundreds of thousands of years ago that led to the moral hive mind was a result of “shared intentionality,” which is “the ability to share mental representations of tasks that two or more of [our ancestors] were pursuing together. For example, while foraging, one person pulls down a branch while the other plucks the fruit, and they both share the meal.” Chimps tend not to display this behavior, Haidt says, but “when early humans began to share intentions, their ability to hunt, gather, raise children, and raid their neighbors increased exponentially. Everyone on the team now had a mental representation of the task, knew that his or her partners shared the same representation, knew when a partner had acted in a way that impeded success or that hogged the spoils, and reacted negatively to such violations.” Examples of modern political violations include Democrat John Kerry being accused of being a “flip-flopper” for changing his mind and Republican Mitt Romney declaring himself “severely conservative” when it was suggested he was wishy-washy in his party affiliation.

Our dual moral nature leads Haidt to conclude that we need both liberals and conservatives in competition to reach a livable middle ground. As philosopher John Stuart Mill noted a century and a half ago: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”****

I would like to mention a pet peeve of mine. It concerns the use of the terms "Red" and "Blue".

Throughout the world, Red is the color of the Left, communism, socialism, progressivism, deficits, and income losses. Blue is the color of the Right and conservatism. This used to include the USA. For example I clearly remember that when Reagan was elected, the color for the Rep states on the map was BLUE.

Yet somewhere along the way (I forget exactly when) my notion is that some progressive slicksters high up in the pravda food change decided to change who was Red and who was Blue in order to evade the connotations of the color Red for the Dems/Progressives.

The Reps, being as stupid as they so often are, didn't even realize.

So, I would like to conclude with the humble request that here on this forum we do not use the term Red to mean Republican/Conservative and Blue to mean Democrat/Liberal.

A fair amount written on Wikipedia on the issue. The assignment of the red vs blue state to Rep and Crat parties respectively seems to have become a permanent label in 2000. Crafty I would agree there is a huge suspicion about left wing media seemingly assigning red to the right when in fact certainly there is the left wing socialist/marxist/communist ties to the color red, Red from the Soviet Russian flag, "Red" communist China etc. While each party is affiliated with these respective colors as being done now is mentioned in Wikipedia as "criticism", the perception given is that this was more or less incidental or a random event.

Yellow and purple colors have also been used.

But I agree with you - it is HARD to believe this was somehow an accident or random choice - and now the media seems to have taken up the mantra in unison branding the parties with these colors as though it fits, or have always been that way:

Recalls are a lousy way to punish failure -- or, in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's case, success -- in implementing political agendas.

Jonah Goldberg

June 5, 2012

It should surprise no one that I'm opposed to the recall of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor whose fate will be decided Tuesday. But that's only in part because I support what he's been trying to do in the Badger State. I'm also against recalls as a matter of principle.

In 2003, I was one of the few conservatives opposed to the recall of Gray Davis, arguably the worst California governor in modern memory.

Davis didn't deserve to stay in office, but the voters of California deserved to keep him. Democracy depends on accountability, not just for individual politicians but for their parties and programs.

As I noted in 2003, former New York Mayor Ed Koch summed up the principle nicely. During the disastrous tenure of his successor, David Dinkins, Koch was asked whether he would run again. Koch replied: "No! The people threw me out, and now the people must be punished."

That logic applies even more for recalls. If California had had its fiscal reckoning in 2004 or 2005, the state — and the country — would be much better prepared to deal with its economic problems than it is now. The Democratic Party in general, and the public sector unions in particular, would have been held accountable for their manifest failures, and instead of replacing Davis with a nominal Republican, voters would have been given a clearer choice.

This isn't to say that both parties deserve equal shares of blame. Davis' successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at least tried to break the union stranglehold on state government with his 2005 referendums. But he failed, thanks in no small part to the determination of government unions doing whatever it took to retain power. The California Teachers Assn., for example, spent $57 million defeating Schwarzenegger's reforms, even mortgaging its headquarters in Sacramento for the effort.

There's constant caterwauling these days about the need for Republicans to become more moderate, more socially liberal, more focused on pragmatic solutions to our country's problems.

That's what California had in Schwarzenegger, a proud Republican of the Nixon-Rockefeller persuasion, married to a Kennedy no less. And California voters chewed him up and spit him out, preferring to stay on the destructive course set by public sector unions and their interest group allies.

Wisconsin's governor is no Schwarzenegger. Walker ran as a full-spectrum conservative promising to take on the political machine. "I was the original'tea party'in Wisconsin," he declared in 2010. The effort to remove Walker from office is not an attempt to hold him accountable for his failures — as it was with Gray Davis — but to punish him for his successes.

Walker has turned a deficit into a projected surplus while cutting property taxes. The state economy seems to have turned a corner, posting modest job gains. His union reforms have proved sufficiently popular that his opponent in the recall, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, isn't even talking about them anymore (perhaps because Barrett used the new laws to save his city millions).

Perhaps most telling, now that government workers aren't forced to pay union dues, membership has dropped precipitously. The ranks of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employeeswere cut nearly in half in less than a year, according to the Wall Street Journal. What does it say when rank-and-file members don't even think it's worth paying the dues to belong?

Polls have Walker the narrow favorite Tuesday, but his opponents have made it clear they will do everything they can to win the ground game by getting voters to the polls. I am cautiously optimistic that voters of Wisconsin will see the folly of demanding a do-over at precisely the moment the state needs to stay the course.

I'm much less optimistic about California, whose problems today dwarf those of Wisconsin when Walker took office. Jerry Brown, who signed collective bargaining for government workers into law in 1978, could be the perfect Nixon-to-China politician to fix the state's problems. But he's proving unable or unwilling to rise to the challenge.

Still, if he fails, he shouldn't be recalled. The people of California should be punished for their mistake. Perhaps they'll learn from it and find their own Scott Walker the next time around.

Political pundits focus on Sen. Marco Rubio as a vice-presidential shortlister, but Senate colleagues from both parties say the freshman Republican is becoming a key foreign-policy player.

By Marc Caputo

Marco Rubio had just stepped off the plane from his first visit to Cuba, the homeland of his forebears, a land at the heart of his political identity.

Did he at least bring back a souvenir?

“No,” he said Tuesday evening.

No sand? No water? No rocks?

“No,” he smiled.

For Rubio, who traveled to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a member of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, the trip was all business. And that’s pretty typical for the Republican freshmen senator, according to colleagues like Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry and Rubio’s fellow foreign-policy hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman.

“Marco’s not a show horse,” Lieberman said. “He’s a workhorse.”

One day he’ll be giving a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington or the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday. Next, he’ll be lugging Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” tome to a Munich conference, stopping along the way in Madrid to chat with Spain’s prime minister in Spanish as his unilingual Anglo colleagues twiddle their thumbs. He also has travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malta, Libya, Haiti and Colombia.

The nation’s political chattering class focuses most heavily on Rubio as a vice-presidential shortlister, but his Senate colleagues can’t help but talk about him becoming a key foreign-policy player as a member of the intelligence and foreign-relations committees.

Lieberman and Kerry are Senate experts both in foreign policy and running in a presidential election. Kerry was the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2004; Lieberman the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in 2000 before becoming an independent.

Both say Rubio is able to handle the rigors of the national campaign trail and the Senate at the same time.

“I’ve been impressed by his thinking — doing the homework necessary to earn the credibility with respect to your approach to things. I think that’s constructive,” Kerry said.

“A lot of the colleagues around here, obviously, are interested in substance and interested in people who do the work and are not impressed by people who are prone to play the political end of something and hold a press conference and not do the work,” Kerry said. “They want to see someone buckle down and learn the ropes. And I think he’s clearly been doing that in a very positive way.”(excerpt only, more at the link)

a) Outspent by out of state money (10 to 1 was claimed?!?)b) many Dem voters didn't think a recall was called forc) 17% of Walker voters will vote for BO (quoting something I didn't see from the Bret Baier Report)

All (partially) true. Except that it was Dems who first nationalized the issue and the race and are you really a real Dem voter if you voted for Walker? Maybe you are a former Dem voter.

"many Dem voters didn't think a recall was called for"

Yes. He turned a $3B deficit into a surplus without a tax increase.

True that Obama polls better in Wisc than Barret. Also possibly true that Obama polls better than his own future vote count.

Coming into 2010, the Gov races in Virginia, New Jersey and the Scott Brown senate race were all unique, not a certain indicator of times to come. All you can say is that it's a start - and a lot better than losing.

The SAME exit polls that Wolf the Blitzer was emphasizing over and over again during the late stages of the elecion yesterday that he claims showed the race was a nearly 50/50 tie. We now know that these exit polls for whatever reasons were way off - several percentage points.

The election results were not close. So why shoudl be believe these same polls that suggest Brockman still has an edge in popularity in Wisconsin? More likely the Presidential race is either even or giving Romney the edge and at least the momentum in Wisconsin.

As far as the money advantages quoted in the MSM that Repubs supposedly had, one has to question the accuracy of this.

As for me not for one second do I believe that there were not thousands of votes for Barrett that of a questionable nature which seems common place at least in Midwestern elections.

If this was a bad time financially for Dems to have an election, why did they call one?

"Go Ugly Early." (Begala's advice to Obama.)

Done. Doesn't cover a bad record.

I have much simpler advice for Obama. Govern like Walker and run on your record.

Too late.

My advice to Begala. This isn't a fight. It is a choice of governing philosophies.

Another important truth out of Wisconsin. The angry public unions lost this race in the primary. That is IMO why Obama did not visit Barrett. I am still truly amazed that he flew over hundreds of miles of Wisconsin, the battle of the year, from Minneapolis to Chicago on June 1, from fund raiser to fund raiser and did not lift a finger or land a plane to offer a morsel of help to his party going down in embarrassment. Next (I already wrote this) it will be Pres. Obama in Badger stadium in Oct saying, "I need your help Wisconsin, I can't do this without you!"

Yet he left them to do it without him, hoping to save his own fragile reputation.

More free advice to the President. Drop out now, admit you weren't ready, save your reputation, and you will still be eligible when you are ready.

Morris agrees with Doug and myself, the Wisconsin exit poll data is skewed. The Dems are in total denial. Wait until Romney wins in November by a *good margin* (barring something unforeseen or a melt down on his part). Everyone will be saying they knew Obama's loss was inevitable. It won't be close. It won't come down to a few states. Jimmy Carter II:

Interesting is that the recall / public union movement lost in the Dem primary. Telling are the polls big left money saw when they decided to sit out and the polls Obama saw when he decided to fly over and tweet it in.

Jim Messina is saying this (the Presidential race and cpngressional races) s a big series of local contests. Looks like one big national referendum to me.

"when they decided to sit out and the polls Obama saw when he decided to fly over and tweet it in."

Agreed. It is still quite remarkable how the left spinners with their journolist accomplices can still come up with some sort of BS that paints a better picture for themselves.

I guess when it is ok to have a sitting president say things like it depends what one means by "is" and have his media thugs saying things like she had sex with him but not vice a versa or an attorney general claiming he was referring to something other than "fast and furious" in an email....

I remember Stephanopoulus when he was Clinton's first press BS artist on TV every day just astonishingly spin everything around twisting the language the logic the rationalizations to such an absurd extent. I thought this guy has to go.

There is nothing political about the Colorado shooting that I know of, nonetheless there was a rush to try to tie him to tea party or right wing causes as if supporting defense with a gun is similar to shooting up a crowded theater. If he were Muslim / Jihad we would draw conclusions quickly too.

But now it is reported that on his match.com profile he is self described "middle of the road" politically. Those people scare me.

Theres always a rush to inject the need to control others decisions. The facts are irrelivent that less people are killed by guns than by cars, or prescription drugs. Its about control masked under the premise of good. Like it or not it has and will become more political.

Yes. I am relieved to find out he is an alleged moderate just to slow the flood of irrationality. Pointing out the completely obvious, if he were a conservative or tea party member he would be a fraud anyway because shooting innocent life is not to hold other people's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness up as unalienable rights.

I care about the victims and I care about his capital punishment. I don't care about his politics.

Brief • July 30, 2012 The Foundation"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas JeffersonGovernment

Democrats aim to hike taxes on the little guy"Senate Democrats passed a so-called middle class tax cut [last] week on a mostly partisan vote, but the move was more political theater than tax legislation. For months, the Democrats, with President Obama leading the charge, have hammered home that they want to preserve lower tax rates for those Americans earning less than $250,000 a year and help pay for lost federal revenues by making wealthier individuals pay higher taxes. ... But who are those 'wealthiest Americans' the Dems keep citing? Illinois businessman Wilson F. Hunt Jr. recently passed on to me the details of how his small business, which he owns with his wife, will be ensnared in this scheme to soak the rich. Last year, his company reported $1.5 million in 2010 income. But because his company elects to pay taxes as a Sub-chapter S Corporation, all the company's profits are reported on the couple's individual income tax returns as the sole shareholders in the company. They paid almost $1.1 million in taxes in 2010, yet the couple paid themselves only a combined salary of $189,000. The rest of the income was put into retained earnings, which the company could then use to expand its business the following year. Hunt explains it this way: 'In order to earn a salary of $189,000 and continue growing our business last year, we had to pledge our house and most of our personal assets to a bank as collateral on a business loan. If the business were to fail, we could lose our home and life savings.' Yet the Democrats vilify people like him as the rich out to cheat the middle class. ... We shouldn't envy people like Hunt; we should thank them for helping build an economy that makes us all better off. But don't try to convince Democratic politicians -- they're too busy stoking class resentment to appreciate that some of those 'millionaires' are the ones out there actually creating jobs." --columnist Linda ChavezPost your opinion on the Democrats' plan.Re: The Left"Economically speaking, no solution to the problem could be simpler than the most obvious one: spend less than one takes in, and start paying down the debt. Politically speaking however, the entire Democrat party and half of the Republican one are dedicated to the idea that dependency on the state is directly correlated with their ability to maintain power. A substantial number of clueless and/or self-entitled Americans are on board, and nothing assuages their sense of clueless self-entitlement more than the notion that someone else is not paying their 'fair' share. Understand how remarkable that kind of thinking is. Not only have such Americans been alleviated of the guilt and shame of living off someone else's effort, they have been told they have every reason to be self-righteous about it. Barring a sea change -- or a watershed election -- thoughtful Americans must face a sobering reality: the ideological bankruptcy of progressivism leads directly to the economic bankruptcy of the nation. Progressives will continue to lie and tell the nation it isn't so. Unfortunately for all of us, the math never lies." --columnist Arnold AhlertThe Gipper"I've come to believe there is little, if any, honesty in the media, and ethic is a word they are totally unfamiliar with." --Ronald ReaganPolitical Futures"Does the 2012 campaign look a lot like the 2004 campaign? Many Democrats think so. ... But, as William Galston of the Brookings Institution, an alumnus of the Clinton White House, writes in The New Republic, 'the evidence in favor of all these propositions is remarkably thin.' Galston points out that in 2004 no single issue was as prominent as the economy is this year and that on most significant issues George W. Bush had a clear edge by the end of the campaign. ... But there are at least two other salient differences between 2004 and 2012. One is that the 2004 election occurred during a period of unusual stability in American voting behavior. ... In other words, almost all voters in 2004 were firmly committed to one party or the other. ... But in recent years, lots of American voters, at least by historical standards, have flipped from one party to the other, and in both directions. The conventional wisdom is that we know with certainty the identity of the dozen or so battleground states. But the list has changed since 2008. ... There's another difference between 2004 and 2012 that is salient. In 2004, George W. Bush's Republican base was pretty much united on issues. Foreign policy realists and neocons were all on board. ... Every campaign cycle is different, and 2012 is more different from 2004 than many Democrats think." --political analyst Michael BaroneOpinion in Brief"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't even wait for the bodies in Aurora, Colorado to cool before he began his usual braying for gun control. Well, if guns are the problem, perhaps Mayor Bloomberg could lead by example and disband the armed NYPD security detail that protects him 24-7. Perhaps someone should remind him what armed NYPD men did to Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima. Or remind him about the Happy Land Social Club fire, in which 87 people were killed not by a gun, but by $5 worth of gasoline, or the Oklahoma City Bombing, in which 168 people were killed by diesel fuel and fertilizer, or the 3,000 people killed on 9/11 by box-cutters and airplanes. The numerous journalists who think that we need to enact 'sensible gun laws' like 'other countries' should be reminded that mass shootings have occurred in Germany, Norway, Australia, Canada, and Great Britain, even after gun control laws far stricter than those in the U.S. were enacted. ... The lesson of the 'Batman' shooting is this: where there is a large sheep herd, the wolves will always thrive. Do we want to be sheep, or not?" --columnist Michael Filozof

Faith and Family"By now the script should be familiar. A bombing or a mass shooting occurs and the media immediately look for a simple cause. Invariably, they turn to talk radio or some other conservative pit of 'intolerance.' ... What is always left out of this familiar scenario is an in-depth discussion of evil. Politicians and commentators almost never speak of evil as something that resides deep inside the human heart. All humans possess the capacity for evil. While it rarely rises to the level of mass murder, the capacity for doing great harm to other human beings lurks within each of us. This is what theologians mean when they speak of a 'fallen' humanity. Violent movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' do not make all people emulate the Colorado shooter, anymore than a movie about love causes people to love one another. ... Sometimes there are no 'solutions' that can forestall an evil act. ... Calling on [a] Higher Authority is the proper and perhaps only counterforce to this and other expressions of true evil." --columnist Cal ThomasCulture"[T]he unstable are not entertained by darkness. They let it in. They are inspired by it. Sometimes they start to live in the movie in their heads. 'I am the Joker,' the shooter is reported to have told the Aurora police. ... Some of the sadness and frustration following Aurora has to do with the fact that no one thinks anyone can, or will, do anything to make our culture better. The film industry isn't going to change, the genie is long out of the bottle. ... A particularly devilish injustice is that many of the wealthy men and women of the filmmaking industry go to great lengths to protect their own children from the products they make. ... One thing about good parents these days is they always look tired. A lot have hard lives -- two jobs, different shifts, helping with homework, cleaning the house. But they also have the exhausted look of hyper vigilance. Once parents could take a break at night, park the kids in front of the TV and let the culture baby-sit. Not anymore. Our culture, they know, is their foe." --columnist Peggy NoonanEssential Liberty"Never before has an administration taken such a bold step to strip Americans of the freedom of conscience -- a right for which, over the centuries, many Christian martyrs have laid down their lives, and which our Founding Fathers took great care to protect in a First Amendment that expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion. As the Founders understood, no government has legitimate authority to take this right away, because it does not come from government. It comes from God. The very purpose of government is to protect this right. A government that seeks to strip it away from the people is by that very process stripping away its own legitimacy. What we are seeing from the Obama administration today -- in its attack on religious liberty -- is simply evil. When government seeks to compel individuals to act against their consciences and to engage in activities that, if willfully done, would imperil their immortal souls, there is no other word for it." --columnist Terence JeffreyFor the Record"[President Obama] is not charging Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood killer, with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA). This law was passed and signed in 2004. After the highly publicized conviction of Scott Peterson in California for the murder of his wife and her unborn child, the law was named the Laci and Conner Peterson Unborn Victims of Violence Act. There would seem to be no possibility of controversy in charging Hasan with violating UVVA. After all, it is indisputable that one of those killed was pregnant at the time of her death. Nor did the mother, Army Private Francheska Velez, contemplate an abortion. There would be no question of her exercising 'choice' in this matter. In fact, her last words, most poignantly reported, were: 'My baby! my baby!' It was for just such heinous crimes that the UVVA was passed. It covers only those instances where a crime of violence is committed on federal property, or where other crimes covered by the federal code are being committed. ... Hasan was assigned to Fort Hood. So were all those who died. There could be no question of UVVA not applying in this case. ... The failure to charge Nidal Hasan with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is another instance of this president's failure to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'" --columnist Ken Blackwell

The GOP's Female Trouble Team Obama is offering a straight-up 1970s feminist agenda but still winning among women. Why?By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

To say that the Republican Party remains dominated by fossilized male dinosaurs who don't know how to talk to modern women—well, that would be mean. It would also be close to the truth.

The GOP's female problem may help lose the presidential election. Women—in particular women who are independent voters—are going to decide this race. They are the demographic most up for grabs. The campaigns know it, which explains the obsessive focus by both sides on the female electorate. And yet for all the Republican attention to the women's vote, the party is blowing a huge opportunity to bring women to its side.

It isn't as if Democrats are in tune with today's woman. The Obama campaign is serving a straight-up 1970s feminist agenda: contraception, abortion, equal pay. In this world view, women can't and don't think much beyond their reproductive apparatus. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter this week went so far as to explain that women "aren't really concerned about what's happened over the past four years." Unemployment, gas prices, ObamaCare—these are not the concerns of women.

That outlook is offensive to every woman who spends 18-hour days wrestling the job, the house, the kids, the bills. Yet Democrats get away with it for one reason: Women appreciate that they are being spoken to directly. Decades of an aversion to "gender politics" has, by contrast, left the GOP with the antiquated view that it shouldn't address women directly on issues that matter specifically to them. The Romney campaign's idea of engaging female voters is to deputize women to repeat its broad campaign themes.

The Republican Party could take some hints from the success of the Independent Women's Forum, an outfit started in the 1990s by free-marketers who wanted a voice distinct from both the feminist left and the cultural right. The IWF's advocacy organization, Independent Women's Voice, has joined in some of today's electoral battles, using direct messaging to speak specifically to women and independents.

It does so by making clear, fact-based arguments on issues that matter to these groups—like health care. Women make 85% of health-care decisions. The GOP tends to bang on about parts of ObamaCare, such as the individual mandate, that are unpopular with its male base. The Independent Women's Voice, by contrast, is directly taking on elements of the law that are popular with women, explaining that seemingly attractive provisions—say, letting 26-year-olds stay on parental insurance—will in fact raise costs and worsen care. In controlled tests of the households where the IWV message had been received, the group found a significant uptick in women and independents who want the law repealed and who support Mr. Romney.

"A lot of political advertising is about sledgehammers and chain saws and beats you over the head," says IWV President and CEO Heather Higgins. "We assume our audience is smart, and want to be able to make up their own minds, and so we present them with facts."

IWV also isn't shy about cutting ads directly aimed at a female audience. That includes its witty "Boyfriend" Web ad, which shows a woman confiding to a friend about a guy who "seemed so perfect" but who just can't "get his act together." The camera subtly pulls back to show a poster of Mr. Obama. The ad was a Web sensation, so much so that the Republican National Committee copied it (with a lower-quality, less thoughtful version).

Republicans are correct in saying that their policies will help everyone, including women. What they fail to note is that their policies will help in specific and important ways. Women are subject to government programs and laws that never envisioned their economic presence and so ignore or penalize their work. Many of the reforms that Mr. Romney is advocating would provide a fix.

While Democrats brag about their Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Mr. Romney might note that the greatest pay injustice for women is the steep marginal tax-rate system that Mr. Obama loves. Since most women are second earners, their income is added to their husband's and taxed at his top rate. A married woman who does the same job as a single man keeps fewer of her dollars. Mr. Romney's tax reforms will benefit all taxpayers, but they will particularly benefit women. It's that simple.

Mr. Romney could note that his health-care reforms—which would finally empower families to buy affordable insurance outside the workplace—would especially help the millions of women who work part time and so don't qualify for corporate health plans. He could note that his plans for strengthening Medicare and eliminating the death tax will matter most to women, who tend to outlive their husbands. He could point out that the labor-force flexibility he promotes would allow women to craft more flexible work arrangements with their bosses—a top working-mother priority.

This isn't gender politics, and it isn't pandering. It's explaining. And it is an acknowledgment that women are a distinct economic constituency—with challenges markedly different from the men who are the dominant force in the GOP. That's the path to the women's vote.

Pew admitted they are getting a 9% response rate on polling. 91% are like me and don't take the call or don't tell strangers their views on the phone. Hard to say what this means for accuracy but not a good sign.

Still I find myself watching the movement in the polls almost every day. (

"I’d like to add one more thing. You’ve all heard about low voter turnout in America, but, among well-educated, older white people, turnout is around 90% in presidential elections. Some economists treat this as a source of amusement—and, sure, I’d be the first to admit that well-educated, older white people have done a lot of damage to this country—but it’s a funny thing . . . Usually economists tend not to question the actions of this particular demographic. I’m not saying that the high turnout of these people (e.g., me) is evidence that voting is rational. But I would hope that it would cause some economists to think twice before characterizing voting as irrational or laughable."